STAR WARS DOMINATES
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has obliterated records for advance ticket sales at US and UK cinemas, leading to many early screenings being completely sold out.
American retailer Fandango said JJ Abrams' film sold more than eight times as many tickets on its first day of release – Monday – as the previous record holder, 2012's The Hunger Games. Separately, IMAX revealed it took $6.5m in ticket sales on a single day for The Force Awakens, having never made more than $1m in 24 hours previously. The space opera reboot was also the bestselling film on movietickets.com, representing 95% of sales over the past 24 hours.
Tickets went on sale in the US, the world's biggest box office, after the debut of the new trailer for The Force Awakens on ESPN's popular Monday Night Football show. In the UK, where tickets went on sale earlier in the day, Star Wars studio Disney said a record 200,000 plus tickets were sold in 24 hours, beating marks for Skyfall, Spectre, The Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey. The unprecedented demand on both sides of the Atlantic, almost two months' prior to the release of Abrams' film, is leading to speculation that The Force Awakens might challenge Avatar for the mantle of highest-grossing movie of all time.
"The only words to describe the first day of IMAX worldwide advance ticket sales for Star Wars: The Force Awakens are 'record-shattering,'" Greg Foster, CEO of IMAX Entertainment, told the Hollywood Reporter. "We're seeing sell-outs across the board – from Hollywood to London, to Sparks, Nevada and everywhere in between."
To beat Avatar, The Force Awakens would have to pass $2.787bn at the global box office, though those sort of figures are not unprecedented for a Star Wars movie. The saga's debut instalment, 1977's Star Wars, made $2.825bn when ticket prices are adjusted for inflation – though Avatar itself is also upgraded to $3.020bn using the same formula.
The Force Awakens early figures might, however, be hampered by its failure to secure a 2015 release date in China, the world's second largest box office. The nation only permits 34 foreign-made films to screen in each calendar year, and with this year's release schedule already full, the Hollywood Reporter says Disney may have to wait until well into 2016 before the space opera screens in the world's most populous nation. Neither is success in China necessarily guaranteed, as the original trilogy released in cinemas from 1977 to 1983 never screened there and many Chinese were unaware of Star Wars' notoriety until recently.
Bookmaker Paddy Power is currently offering odds of 16-1 on The Force Awakens passing Avatar's total by June 2016. Abrams' film, starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Andy Serkis, Gwendoline Christie, Max Von Sydow and Adam Driver, debuts in US cinemas on 18 December, a day after the film's UK release.
